Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. I also thank him for the constructive approach he always takes when questioning me in the Dáil, as do all his colleagues, regarding issues concerning mental health services. I was also concerned about the waiting lists for CAMHS. As the Deputy said, some of these issues have existed for a while and have been inherited. In addressing this situation, I took an approach earlier this year that was different to that undertaken by previous Ministers. I met the chief officer of each CHO regarding mental health services. We held three meetings a day, and nine within a week. I met those chief officers to hear what the situation was like on the ground, where they saw the challenges regarding staffing issues and why some areas were performing much better in addressing CAMHS waiting lists.

For example, the Galway area does particularly well and is always in a good position as regards waiting lists. In contrast, CHO 4, covering Cork and Kerry, had issues with long waiting lists. I am delighted to say, however, that when Mr. Michael Fitzgerald took over as the chief officer there that he hired extra capacity and quickly reduced the waiting lists by a third. Therefore, there are innovative things that can be done in this regard.

To answer the Deputy's question regarding recruitment directly, my budget for this year included an extra €23 million for new developments, which equates to 153 extra staff. Of those, 29 people were allocated specifically for CAMHS to support the telehub section and the different teams. To date, 40 of those 153 staff have been recruited. As I said earlier, recruitment in the HSE is a slower process and can take up to 50 weeks. I expect many of these extra posts to be filled by the end of quarters 3 and 4. We will have many more of those extra staff in place by the end of the year.

The Deputy is correct that sometimes staff can be recruited whose previous experience in providing mental health services may have been in dealing with adults rather than children. Those staff then have to upskill in that regard. As a psychiatrist, Dr. Dodd is very informed about this issue. I ask him to comment.